Tancredo: “Global Warming is Bull”

Former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo spoke Thursday night to students on the George Washington University campus at an event sponsored by the Young America’s Foundation. Tancredo played some of his oldest hits for the crowd, repeating remarks he first made about nuclear retaliation in a July 2005 radio interview. Tancredo proposed that if an Islamic terrorist attack was launched on the United States, the best policy for the U.S. would be to use nuclear weapons on Mecca and Medina, because you have “to go for the jugular.”

“Well, what if you said something like — if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites,” Tancredo argued. The former congressman told students that mutually assured destruction was the best policy for preventing attacks from “Islamo-Facists.” Tancredo insisted that Islamic terrorists would be greatly deterred from launching an attack on U.S. soil if they believe we are “crazy enough” to “take out” Mecca and Medina.

During the course of the event, Frum Forum also asked Tancredo his thoughts on the current state of the Republican Party. He replied, “Bipartisanship is overrated, we don’t need moderates in the party, we need principled conservatives.”Tancredo is looking for another Reagan, “a politician, who can inspire.” However, he does not see anyone who currently fits that mold.

During the speech, Tancredo also played a new tune for the audience, addressing fears about global warming. When asked if the G.O.P. needs to adopt a platform on climate change and current environmental issues his response was quite eloquent in its brevity: “We have a position, its bull****.”

Tancredo’s old hits about bombing Mecca were not well received. Those statements were met with mixed reactions from the crowd. Many students’ jaws dropped in amazement after he made the comments. Some looked around in awe and asked “Is he serious?” Others defended the need for such crazed action by saying “there is no other option.”

Distressingly though the students in attendance seemed quite happy with Tancredo’s new remarks on climate change and his statement that the GOP needs to move farther to the right, purging itself of moderates and RINOS.

89 Comments so far ↓

I love how every democrat hack repeats the exact same talking points about the GOP being the party of no. Come up with some original, you mindless statist.

We aren’t the party of No. We are the party of Hell No to high taxes, governmnet run healthcare, runaway spending, printing money that we don’t have, cap and tax, etc

Pretentious no-nothing liberals should keep their advice to themselves. You ought to be more concerned about making some kind of defense for Obama’s policies, which most Americans seem to be rejecting right now. :0

Global warmers are the ones in denial. They’ve attacked conservative’s intelligence for years on the global warming for years, and the fact is we’ve experienced a global cooling trend since 1998 despite increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. Their ego won’t let them admit they were wrong and silly alarmist fools on this issue.

Nobody is ever going to take you serriously if you insult people as “teabaggers”, a crude sexual act, simply because they engage in peaceful protests of an over-reaching government. You’ve established that you are callow.

There you go again, ranting about what you hate. By the way, I’m not a Democrat. I’m not even an American. Your politics are distorted by your fear of being “socialist”. It’s not that you don’t have socialist policies; you just don’t like the appearance of being socialist. The Conservative Midwest hates socialism, but loves its decades of generous farm subsidies and agricultural trade protectionism. The Industrial Northeast hates socialism, but loves industrial trade protectionism and car manufacturer bailouts. Military contractors hate socialism, but they love the fact that their entire income is derived from government contracts which keep shoveling more money into their trough no matter how badly they go over budget.

Rather than define yourself by labels, you should define yourself by solutions. Or you can just keep bashing “pretentious liberals”.

Attacks on global warming come from the same place as attacks on evolution theory. You even hear the same kind of rhetoric: “growing numbers of scientists dispute …” and negative remarks about “mainstream science …” and quotes from scientists taken out of context to make it appear as if they’re saying something much different than what they’re saying (one favourite: quoting a scientist’s dispute with a particular prediction and acting as if the scientist is dismissing the entire theory, or blaming scientists for inaccurate statements by journalists).

And then of course, there are the incredibly simplistic attempts to disprove complex theories with common-sense arguments that can be expressed in a few sentences and which could never possibly address the complicated models under dispute here. You can’t even write a typical university lab report in less than 20 pages, and people think they can knock down peer-reviewed theories with something they found on the Internet and can express in 20 words or less. Or even more hilariously, with a Youtube video or a link to a blog.

I almost forgot to mention the attacks on emotional motivation: creationists accuse scientists of having some evil Nazi agenda, and anti-global warming people accuse scientists of being “alarmists” as if they are serving some emotional impulse. Do you really think anyone actually WANTS to be told that his own lifestyle should be curtailed in order to limit environmental damage? I like my steak dinners, I like my car, I like my manufactured goods. I don’t accept the greenhouse gas theory because of what I want; I accept it because the specialists in the relevant field do, and all of the arguments I’ve heard against it eventually turn out to be either unqualified or dishonest (or more often, both).

Anybody that thinks we are heading for an environmnetal doomsday because of CO2, which is required for life on this earth, is an alarmist fool. There’s always been alarmists, and history always proves them to be just that.

Global warming isn’t a complex theory…it’s as simplistic one that suggests that one variable…CO2, not even 4% of all greenhouse gases….can raise global temperatures signifantly. This defies logic….climate is much more complex than this.

Science has become politicized, and if your peers are liberals and you “research” concludes that global warming is true, of course they are going to sign off on it. They are already at that conclusion and they retrofit their “facts” to fit their pre-determined findings.

Nobody is ever going to take you serriously if you insult people as “teabaggers”, a crude sexual act, simply because they engage in peaceful protests of an over-reaching government.

Just a bunch of peaceful protesters? Then I don’t think Mr. Kostrick did your movement a whole lot of good carrying a weapon to a speech by president Obama:

One bystander at a town hall has received special attention. William Kostric was outside Barack Obama’s town-hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., wearing a pistol in a holster. New Hampshire has open-carry laws, and Kostric was in no way disorderly. What should cause alarm was the sign he carried: ‘It is time to water the tree of liberty.’

“This invokes Jefferson’s 1787 letter on Shays’ Rebellion, an uprising of indebted farmers in Massachusetts. ‘What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?’ Jefferson, thousands of miles away in Paris, asked. ‘The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.’

“Jefferson was a great man, but some of his thoughts were greatly mistaken. In the Declaration of Independence, he more reasonably observed, ‘Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.’

“But the sign bearer has taken upon himself to nudge theory toward action. If ‘it is time’ to water the tree of liberty, then ‘it is time to kill people.’ For a citizen of a free country, with a free press, a right to assemble, and free elections, to say such things is dangerous madness. It is time for the half-educated to take a deep breath.”

This is what the conservative movement looks like to those of us outside the bubble.

Remember the crazy Tempe pastor who was Tasered at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint *** back in April: Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church? The same fella that Christopher Broughton, the anti-Obama, anarchist AR-15-carrying activist, declared to be his pastor on conspiranut moonhowler Alex Jones’ radio show?

Well, as has been reported on Crooks and Liars and MSNBC, the day before Broughton brought his loaded assault rifle to a demonstration outside where the President was speaking in downtown Phoenix, Pastor Anderson was preaching hate for President Obama, and praying for the Chief Executive’s death.

And when I say, “preaching hate,” I don’t mean that as a figure of speech.

In a rambling, hour-plus sermon that knocks “sodomites,” disses Pentecostal Christians, and offers up a birther fantasy of Obama playing baseball in Kenya as a child with a stick and a mango, Anderson talked about how Obama would be in town the next day, and that some of his parishioners might be attending, although he couldn’t personally make it due to previous plans.

For Anderson, Obama cannot be “saved,” and because Obama backs access to abortion for women, he deserves to die.

“You’re gonna tell me that I’m supposed to pray for the socialist devil,” asked Anderson, rhetorically, referring to Obama, “[this] murderer, infanticide, who wants to see young children, and he wants to see babies killed through abortion and partial birth — and all these other things — you’re gonna tell me I’m supposed to pray for god to give him a good lunch tomorrow, while he’s in Phoenix, Arizona. Nope. I’m not going to pray for his good. I’m going to pray that he dies and goes to hell. When I go to bed tonight, that’s how I’m going to pray.”

It’s not about race. It’s about teh crazy.

Come next spring after Obama has humbled them by passing health care legislation and failing to succumb to a revelation of his Kenyan heritage to bring down his administration the Right is going to go howling whack crazy all summer and any advantage that can be expected by any party during mid-terms is going to be blunted by the continuing freak show of Michelle Bachmann, Glenn Beck, and the ever popular Rush Limbaugh.

You want them on your side when they rouse the rabble to protest taxees hat have stayed the same or gone down, but when the rabble shows up armed and talking about killing tyrants, it’s not so much of a positive. Meanwhile, the left’s armed revolutionaries of the 60′s are geriatric patients, old cranks who are zero threat.

The next Tim McVeigh, the avenger of the Right however is primed and ready to go off.

“The GOP is frozen in a time warp in which welfare reform nevr happened and Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan still command legions of followers instead of being the old washed up men they are today. And they were only elevated to their lofty position by a media looking for someone to be the spokesmen for all the blacks in America instead of seeing us as individuals who make our own choice based on our own needs.”

I agree. The problem you have should be brought up with the media since anytime they need a “Black Opinion” they put on Sharpton or Jackson. They are presented as basically the Presidents of Black America. Which we both know is ridiculous.

“You could try finally ditching the Confederate flag defense. It’s as offensive to me as the swastika, and by the way we’re not stupid enough to believe that Joe Wilson’s membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans had nothing to do with his disrespect to president Obama during his speech.”

My ancestors were Union Soldiers. The Confederate Flag is an offensive symbol to me and I consider it Anti-American to fly the flag. I live in Texas but I am originally from Upstate NY. My Family has been Republican since since the mid 1800′s.

“What was gained by the psychotic reaction to Obama’s planned speech to school kids?”

That was just plain insane and unfortunately racial overtones were an element. It was despicable and I won’t defend it. I was against the planned essay on “How to help President Obama” since that was way too partisan, but the whole ruckus about not allowing kids to see the speech was absolutely stupid, counter productive, petty, and ridiculous.

“Do you really think we can support the party that’s against the minimum wage when so many of us live on exactly that level of income?”

I support the Minimum Wage as do most GOP voters. It’s the far right that doesn’t. The last President to sign a Minimum Wage increase was President Bush.

Though I will add though that it is not some painless regulation either. It does hurt a lot of small businesses struggling to get by, which is why big companies like Wal-Mart champion it. I think the Minimum Wage should be indexed to inflation and their should be adequate tax relief to small businesses to offset the burdens of the minimum wage.

“The party’s own actions, and it’s still essentially lily white mostly male composition do you in with black men and especially black women.”

But that’s the problem. If we try outreach to minority communities they reject us because we are mostly white. But since they won’t join how are we supposed to change that?

There are a lot of Hispanics, Asians, and Blacks that agree with out policies and conservatism a lot more then they do with the Democratic Party. I agree we need to dramatically change the face of our party and how we appeal to Minority Communities. But we also need minorities who agree with us but think we are doing a piss poor job of understanding and reaching out to minorities to come aboard and change us from the inside.

But that’s the problem. If we try outreach to minority communities they reject us because we are mostly white. But since they won’t join how are we supposed to change that?

- By trying in years other than one divisible by four

- By recruiting serious black talent for political office and not lunatics like Alan Keyes

- By advertising in black media and on black radio especially

- By not giving up and trying again since right now the GOP is at zero and setting targets that extend a decade in the future and not just who you can knock off in the next election

And mostly by admitting the problem exists in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I will still be rooting for your guys to lose but at the very least whatever race they’re in were less likely to hear a little less of the insane talk that makes us despise the party rather than just oppose it.

Republicans are my political enemy, not my personal enemy. I don’t believe in any of the same things they do, or more precisely I don’t subscribe to their point of view, but they are still citizens, Americans and as such the only place to do battle is at the ballot box.

There are a lot of Hispanics, Asians, and Blacks that agree with out policies and conservatism a lot more then they do with the Democratic Party. I agree we need to dramatically change the face of our party and how we appeal to Minority Communities. But we also need minorities who agree with us but think we are doing a piss poor job of understanding and reaching out to minorities to come aboard and change us from the inside.

Before the crash I made more money in the space of a few years than my father did in his entire life. I’ve paid more in taxes the last decade than some people make in earnings.

I ought to be a Republican, but the party is too damn crazy over abortion, school prayer, evolution !!???, and the use of military power.

The Iraq war has been a disaster yet Republicans in serious numbers were defending George Bush virtually up until the day Rumsfeld was finally fired and something was finally done about the serious effort we were making to lose that war.

The country was virtually unanimous in support for stomping the Taliban and Al Queda in Afghanistan yet that war has been going on longer than World I & World War II combined. It can not be seriously put forth that Obama was expected to fix that mess in eight months.

The country, the world was staring into an abyss one year ago and it’s a miracle that we didn’t have a crash the size of a second Great Depression.

Acknowledge those screwups and more importantly come up with some real proposals to do something about them. The loudest voices in the GOP are shouting Obama is a Marxist selling us out.

Folks like David Frum and others like him, who I hold responsible for helping inflict George Bush on us in the first place, are now saying the GOP needs to be something else, do something else.

Okay fine. Have at it. Unfortunately quite a few members of your party haven’t gotten the memo that says the first thing to do when in a hole is to stop digging.

- By recruiting serious black talent for political office and not lunatics like Alan Keyes

- By advertising in black media and on black radio especially

- By not giving up and trying again since right now the GOP is at zero and setting targets that extend a decade in the future and not just who you can knock off in the next election”

Good points.

“The country, the world was staring into an abyss one year ago and it’s a miracle that we didn’t have a crash the size of a second Great Depression.”

Let me get this straight. Anything bad that is happening is his predecessors fault, I mean how could Obama possibly solve anything in just nine months.

But if something positive happens it’s all to Obama’s credit?

As for Afghanistan, I actually have been very supportive of his handling on Afghanistan until recently. I thought he got together a crack team and his decision to send 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan was just what was needed. It’s his dithering on Afghanistan right now that I can’t support. And he is only doing so because the left wing of his party won’t get behind a troop surge.

“The loudest voices in the GOP are shouting Obama is a Marxist selling us out. ”

As a posed to the loudest voices in the Democratic Party who were screaming Bush was a Fascist and selling us out?

Let me get this straight. Anything bad that is happening is his predecessors fault, I mean how could Obama possibly solve anything in just nine months.

But if something positive happens it’s all to Obama’s credit?

Find me quote where I said that and I’ll be happy to discuss its implications.

George W. Bush is possibly the worst president in American history and Obama’s eight months in office is barely time to scratch the surface of finding what Bush screwed up much less fix it.

His trillion dollar war in Iraq was on the verge of collapse about 16 months ago thank the Lord the surge worked (or at least half worked because none of the political objectives were met). Bush gets credit for not losing one war though he tried pretty damn hard to do so.

It’s his dithering on Afghanistan right now that I can’t support.

Because going with your gut snap decisions seemed to work so well.

As a posed to the loudest voices in the Democratic Party who were screaming Bush was a Fascist and selling us out?

If he was doing such a wonderful job what would it matter as long as 49% of the country + 2% thought otherwise. If McCain was such a prize and Palin the lightning in a bottle it was claimed why did Obama get not only the 2% swing vote but another 2% from your side? He still would have won but without wining both houses of congress.

If you can’t admit Bush was a disaster you’ll never fix your problems and frankly I hope you don’t If cooler heads keep the guns at home next year feel free to go on about all the rest. But you know what that will mean for the future, electoral Armageddon.

“Find me quote where I said that and I’ll be happy to discuss its implications.”

I took this to mean you were crediting Obama:

“The country, the world was staring into an abyss one year ago and it’s a miracle that we didn’t have a crash the size of a second Great Depression.”

If I was wrong to interpret it that way I will gladly retract my statement.

“Because going with your gut snap decisions seemed to work so well.”

What gut snap decision? The General he put in charge to give him a no bull read out on the situation in Afghanistan and a clear strategy for victory gives him one after months of review.

Bush was wrong for ignoring his Generals but now it’s all right for Obama to ignore the recommendations of the General he put in charge to do just that?

“If you can’t admit Bush was a disaster”

Never said he wasn’t. On a whole host of issues he was absolutely dreadful.

“If McCain was such a prize and Palin the lightning in a bottle it was claimed why did Obama get not only the 2% swing vote but another 2% from your side? He still would have won but without wining both houses of congress.”

McCain was leading by between 3-5 points until the Market collapsed. I can’t predict and say McCain would have ultimately won if Lehman Brothers did not collapse but I can say pretty confidently it would have been a fairly close election otherwise. Before Lehemen Brothers I was pretty confident it was going to be another 51-48 election regardless of who ended up winning.

“The country, the world was staring into an abyss one year ago and it’s a miracle that we didn’t have a crash the size of a second Great Depression.”

That would be the financial bailouts and stabilization, including rescuing GM, AIG, and all the rest that kept the system from dissolving. Did some of the people responsible make themselves even richer in the process, yes.

Nose, meet face. cutting it off out of spite is a bad idea. Bush handed Obama a plate full of steaming cow pie to contend with and he has done an admirable job as he comes up on nine months.

A handful of Republicans supported the first round of financial rescue. None of them supported the second so credit them with averting disaster, no points for putting politics ahead of the country for round two. Come next year when the stimulus really kicks in there will be a lot of grateful workers who will help keep mid-term loses down.

Obama’s victory with health care will eliminate any chance of the GOP’s ability to claim they stopped Obama. In fact he survived the worst they had to throw at him and his falling numbers, which aren’t too awful anyway, have inched back up a point.

McCain was leading by between 3-5 points until the Market collapsed.

The old saying “Close counts in horseshoes and hand grenades” applies. Doesn’t matter if we beat you by 1 vote or 1 million, we beat you. Sitting presidents don’t get tossed very often and with enemies like Michelle Bachmann, well another old saying applies too: “Lord make my enemies ridiculous.”

The teabaggers will go insane next year in the primaries making the GOP run its most conservative )read craziest) candidates and push the so-called RINOS out of the way.

As for Afghanistan, I’d like some thoughtful deliberation before send more troops to die thank you.

I don’t see the GOP Chickhawks lining up to volunteer to go fight, just more exhortations to fight to the last man, as look as that man isn’t them.

Is Glenn Beck going to go? He’s within the age limits? So is Jonah Goldberg and a host of other yapping pundits who scream for the head of Bin Laden but won’t suit up to actually go get him.

I did my bit. If you like I can point any one of them to the nearest Army Recruiting Station. Just remember, don’t believe anything that isn’t in writing when it comes to what MOS you get or what post your will be assigned. And sign up for just three at a time. You’re committed for six no matter what but doing it a three year hitch at a time is easier to bite off.

Sen. John McCain and Rep. Peter King are pressing President Obama to issue a posthumous pardon for Jack Johnson, the African-American boxing champion convicted in 1913 for dating a white woman. He served 10 months in prison on charges “brought forward clearly to keep him away from the boxing ring, where he continued to defeat his white opponents,” McCain and King said.

Johnson, the first African-American to win the heavyweight title, was convicted for violating the Mann Act, which outlawed the transportation of women across state lines for “immoral” purposes.

He served 10 months in prison on charges “brought forward clearly to keep him away from the boxing ring, where he continued to defeat his white opponents,” McCain and King said.

Almost a century after Johnson’s conviction, his compelling saga has continued to capture the interest of sports writers, civil rights activists and historians. It provides, they agree, a unique window into American politics and culture at a time when Jim Crow-style racism reigned supreme.

Johnson was first arrested for breaking the Mann Act in 1912, four years after winning the heavyweight crown. That case fell apart, but investigators soon after charged him with a similar offense involving a woman he had dated years earlier.

Justice Department lawyers argued it was a “crime against nature” for him to have a sexual relationship with a white woman.

Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, later to become the first commissioner of Major League Baseball, set Johnson’s bail at $30,000, the equivalent of more than $660,000 today. When a bail bondsman showed up, Landis jailed him, too, according to an account that filmmaker Ken Burns relays in his documentary “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson.”

King is probably one of the worst members of congress to ever bear the name, but that doesn’t mean he can never do anything worthwhile. It’s all the difference between merely disliking the policies of the party and despising it.

“As for Afghanistan, I’d like some thoughtful deliberation before send more troops to die thank you.”

If that’s what it is fine. If it’s trying to find a way to please his left wing then that’s where he loses me.

And don’t start that chicken hawk bull crap. This is the “Good War” remember. The ones the Democrats were supposedly determined to win no matter what. Or at least that is what they were saying during campaign time. I don’t see too many Democratic Politicians or Pundits flooding recruitment centers to go and fight the “Good War” either.

I plan on joining up myself after Graduation. I’m not sure which branch I have friends and family in almost all of them and they all have told me the pro’s and con’s of each of their respective branches. It’s just something I have always wanted to do, even if it’s not for a career, at least for a few years. Though there are many Democrats in the Military, most recruits come overwhelmingly from Red States. The Military voted 55-44% for McCain. So there are plenty of Center Right folks out there who “Walk the Walk” as well.

As for you stating the GOP hated MLK J.R. earlier, it was the Kennedy Administration that had him followed and investigated.

Diety on a pogo-stick, is it too much to ask to be accurately quoted.

Find exactly where I said the GOP hated Martin Luther King? What they did do was imply he was a communist. Rather than standing up for the man when asked whether MLK was a commie, St. Ronald said we’ll know in about 35 years.

The bill McCain introduced is to make up for his own vote against the holiday.

During that same period the Republicans failed to come out against apartheid in South Africa, more concerned with playing chess against the Soviets than doing what was right. It isn’t the GOP that help set Neslon Mandella free.

It’s not hate, it’s insults, stupidity, insensitivity, and lack of concern for what matters to black America. It’s the assumption that the only thing that matters to us is welfare and not the same concerns that every other person in America has.

We know it and we show our displeasure at the polls.

It’s amusing to note that the Left completely ignored the leftwinger that gunned down an anti-abortion protestor earlier this year.

We didn’t ignore it. It’s just that we don’t have an entire industry devoted harassing women engaging in a completely legal medical procedure nor do we routinely make the worship of guns a centerpiece of our political activity. We’re the people who tried for two decades to ban handguns until we decided screw it, you want you guns you can have them. The result one more death on the streets of America, no different than the hundreds of times a year it happens to someone else.

So now the meme, Tim McVeigh really wasn’t a militia believer and follower of the Turner Diaries, he was secretly an Islamic terrorist?

Your proof of Timothy McVeigh being a conservative is that he blew up a building. That’s crazy. You have no clue what his politics were…it’s just convenient for you to label him a conservative because he was a white male.

But rbottoms, don’t the Democrats also ignore and demean African American voters. They at least take them for granted. If I know I’m automatically going to get your vote no matter what, then I have no need to worry at all about your concerns.

rbottoms, the only Earl Graves I know of was a NBA basketball player, but I couldn’t tell you what he does now or anything he has to do with politics.

I agree the Republican Party has not done enough outreach or been effective and getting our message across to most of the African American community.

But I would argue the Democrats take your vote for granted. Let’s take an issue that effects the black population more than the white, big city public school systems.

What have the Democrats done to help educate minority school children in Washington, Detroit, Philadelphia, the Bronx, New Orleans, Chicago etc. All these cities are run by your party and have been for some time, yet the schools are third world level.

You really think most Democrats give a damn about African Americans other than on election day?

[...] man made global warming and climate change, addressing fears of global warming with the line “We have a position, its bull****.” Yet Tancredo has promised, if elected governor, to appoint a Colorado Senator who voted for [...]